


At the start of all things

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s04e22 Lucifer Rising, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-18
Updated: 2009-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 4x22. This isn't so complicated after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the start of all things

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: The idea for the structure of this came from musesfool, who also beta-read ♥.

**1.**   


Beneath Dean's fingers Sam's jacket feels rough and also soft from fraying. They should find him a new one, Dean thinks, while the light grows, and he almost laughs, because a new jacket isn't exactly on the top of the to do list.

Deer-in-the-mother-fucking-headlights, Sam doesn't move when Dean tugs.

"We have to go. Sam!"

Just like Palo Alto, only the fire is blinding and cool, and Dean has to work harder, use his full body weight to shove, muscles in his arms straining, pulling Sam towards the crypt door.

In Palo Alto, he'd been able to lift Sam.

  


  
**2.**   


It's not until they make it outside, breathing in the cold Maryland night, that the resistance Dean feels gives way, so suddenly that he loses his grip on his brother. Dean's stomach jumps with panic when there's nothing beneath his fingers, until he sees Sam at his shoulder and realizes they're running in the same direction.

They leap down the broken steps together as a light source from behind them flings their shadows across the ground. There's a car sitting at the bottom of the slope, next to the St. Mary's sign.

Dean doesn't know what's coming up through the floor of that crypt, but he can feel it, goosebumps rising on his arms. Dean stops halfway down the hill, hearing a whisper inside his head.

He looks at Sam, who's got that strange, gone look in his eyes, but then Sam blinks, and it's Sam who grabs Dean's shoulders, shoves him towards the yellow car with the black stripe down the middle of the hood.

Sam rips the wires out from under the steering wheel with his mouth pressed into a tight line, movements deliberate and swift and methodical. His fingers only shake a little as the ignition sparks.

  


  
**3.**   


Calling Bobby fills up some of the silence. As soon as Bobby recognizes Dean's voice, he starts to yell, wanting to know what happened to him because there'd been a rush of wind and then Dean had vanished between one blink and the next.

Dean begins to explain everything, then gets to the part about killing Lilith, and pauses. He looks over at Sam, the way the headlights of cars going in the opposite direction sweep over him, outlining his brother in silver and leaving him in darkness again.

With his left hand on the steering wheel, Sam holds out his right, and Dean hands the cell over, the words he was going to use in the tip of his brain, almost out of his mouth.

What Sam tells Bobby, his voice flat and level and nearly dead in a way that frightens Dean, isn't how Dean had been planning to tell the story. Dean had planned to say _we_. Maybe fudge things, just a little--he could do that much for Sam.

There's no yelling that Dean can hear when Sam's done. Sam listens, and in the lights of another passing car, Dean sees the moisture in Sam's eyes, but the tears don't fall.

Then Sam hands the phone back to Dean and Dean wants to know, but Bobby starts right in on logistics, mixed with a lot of cursing and repeated mumbling of the phrase "godamned idjits." Bobby hangs up first.

It's another half an hour before Dean can ask. "What did he say to you?"

It's another three minutes before Sam answers. "He called me a stupid son of a bitch, said he was disappointed in me." He coughs. "Then he said he loved me like a son and we'd better get our asses to his place."

  
**4.**   


There's been too much silence, for too long, but Dean doesn't know how to break it. Wonders maybe if he should start screaming.

He's driving now, has been since a short while after the phone call to Bobby, but this isn't his car, and he doesn't want to touch the radio. Doesn't want to have anything more to do with it than he can help. He watches Sam sleep, thinks how peaceful he looks and if things can just continue on like this, the highway miles and hum of a car engine and nothing else, eventually it'll be okay. It'll all get a chance to settle and be okay.

For now it's enough that Sam's there.

In Ohio, they pull into the parking lot of a burger place. Dean gets out first, checks in with Bobby, who says he's mustered twenty-two hunters and has started the phone tree to find more. Everyone they can find, the US, Canada, Mexico--Bobby says he's even called his friend in the UK.

Funny how the day looks so normal, families out to eat, the sky blue with a few clouds and stupid yellow and red balloons tied up to the burger place sign, some kind of promotion for their new sandwiches.

Dean thinks he can still hear the dark whisper in his head, like it'd lodged there in Maryland and stayed across the miles.

"Dean, wait." Sam's fingers close around Dean's arm. "We can't go in."

"Why?" But Dean already knows, and his body twitches with a shiver.

"They're demons." Sam jerks his head towards the restaurant. "The hostess, the group sitting at the table there, that couple in the booth."

Dean wants to ask it. Bites down on his tongue so he won't.

A small, nasty lopsided smile is on Sam's face. "Yeah," he says, and moves so Dean can't avoid looking him in the eye. "I can tell. I can feel it." The way Sam says the next words, sharp and sarcastic, makes Dean taste something bitter on his tongue. "My spidey sense is tingling."

"We should take them out."

"With what?"

"Holy water and Latin."

A mini-van pulls in, full of a bunch of corporate types in suits. Six of them.

Sam's fingers twist into Dean's shirt. "We have to run. _Now._ "

One of the corporate types turns, and his eyes flash black in the sunlight.

"Good plan," Dean says.

  
**5.**   


They don't discuss what happened in the burger joint parking lot, and Dean already knows why neither of them was willing to use the knife. At the Ohio-Indiana border, they pick up greasy drive-thru food and continue on. He lets himself sink deeper into the cadence of the road, interstates and exits, changing lanes, the rise of hills in the distance. Those are a mapped certainty.

After another few hours, they switch over; Sam drives and Dean sleeps.

Dean wakes from a doze in the passenger seat. His muscles are cramped; he misses the Impala. They've stopped, and Dean blinks in the sunlight.

The driver's seat is empty. Sam's gone.

 _No, shit, no--_ runs through Dean's head as he yanks the door open and tumbles out, nearly falling as pins and needles shoot up his leg.

Then he sees Sam, standing a few yards down the road, his arms leaning on the fence. Staring off at nothing.

They're in the middle of flat farmland, the highway going until it vanishes at the horizon and Dean finds himself listening for the drone of a prop plane because wouldn't that just be utterly freakin' hilarious, some demon trying to run them down like he and Sam are both Cary freakin' Grant, fleeing across a dusty field.

He refrains from jogging over to Sam, makes himself walk, slow and easy, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. "What're you doing?"

"She said it was in me, the whole time." Sam's voice sounds scratchy. He doesn't look at Dean, but keeps his eyes on the horizon, where there's a white farmhouse and a red barn. "That it had to be me."

Sam steps back from the fence and kicks it, rattling the boards. Dean flinches, then wishes he hadn't.

Sam kicks again and the wood cracks. Another kick and the boards are in splinters, ruined, and Sam keeps kicking, then starts in with his fists against the post. Dean sees the blood forming on his knuckles and before Sam can land the next blow against the wood, Dean's hand intercepts Sam's fist in his palm. The blood is sticky against Dean's fingers.

"Fuck," Sam says, then screams it: "Fuck!" His breathing goes ragged as he grabs at Dean's shirt. He's going to his knees, Dean kneeling to stay with him, to keep him from falling.

"Take it easy."

"What am I? Dean, what am I?" Sam's huddled over, shoulders shaking, and the breaths coming out of him frighten Dean, they're so quick and frantic, like Sam's drowning.

This part isn't complicated. Dean thought it was but maybe it's not. This is like the road, where he knows what to do, because he's done it many times before. The only bad part was not being able to do it.

Dean digs his knees into the dirt and pulls Sam up against him, puts his face against Sam's back, listens to his brother's heart beating too fast.

Holds him and says, "You're _Sam._ "


End file.
